


The Logical Tailor

by DG_Fletcher



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Cultureshock, M/M, Meditation, Romulus - Freeform, Vulcans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 20:03:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18301028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DG_Fletcher/pseuds/DG_Fletcher
Summary: Spock thought he was teaching an eager young Romulan the ways of Surak. The eager young Romulan wasn't a Romulan after all. (This is Garashir, but Garashir's not the "point")





	The Logical Tailor

**Author's Note:**

> The grammar's a bit "poetic" in this one. *shrug*

In a Star Trek Universe far far away where Spock was trying to unify Vulcan at a time that wasn't quite so close to when Deep Space Nine started--

\--A young, 17 year old little bitty lizard spy was absolutely, utterly, completely pissed off and miserable, working under the eerie angular shadows of the Romulan Military Third Building Subdivision B, planting bethenias and pulling up yellerweed and trying semi-futility to convince the bowlflowers to flower instead of sitting there like little gray sticks in the gray mud. 

Angry, confused, frustrated, annoyed, and oop there goes a yellerweed into the trash can. 

Pissed off, cranky, unhappy, miserable, and oop, there goes another yellerweed into the trash can. 

Unhappy, grimy, the gardening gloves broke again, the fourteen sad bowlflowers look about as miserable as he felt. 

Annoyed, worried, panicky, and crabby, at least the bethenias get a prop-up stick, I'm out here by myself dressed up surgically as a Romulan rural-transplant nobody named Gahedl who was SUPPOSED TO BE--

Is that another yellow bitey anthill? ANOTHER one? I thought I got rid of them a week ago. They're BACK. Hate gardening hate Romulus hate this project hate their sun hate their culture hate their food hate their clothes, DIE YELLOW BITEY ANTS DIE

\--Supposed to work on this garden project for only about 3 weeks before surreptitiously being transferred to indoor maintenance. 

From there, all he needed to do was spend about a day and a half downloading six data cards from the mainframe, another day a half framing a specific Romulan for it, and GO HOME. 

Instead, he'd been stuck here for seven and a half MONTHS gardening like CRAZY and it was making him crazy and miserable and they don't call these damn yellow things BITEY ants for nothing. ow ow ow. 

Crabby angry kinda-hurty dirty fingernails this is miserable, off to the maintenance shed I go to find the pest control spray. Hate ants hate gardening hate everything about this project but Project Manager Devska back home things this is better than leaving. 

They HAVE to promote me to Interior here sometime? Don't they?? ow there's an ant IN my glove. ow ow ow hate this job ow. 

Die ants

Die. 

Meanwhile, Mesketl who thought he was the boss of a quiet but crabby Romulan rural-transplant nobody named Gahedl and had no idea that the kid's sunburned-looking skin was actually kind of a mispigmentation accident because Devska-Garak's-actual-boss was Cardassian and didn't realize Romulans don't quite come in THAT shade of kind of pink. 

Mesketl thought he'd hit the jackpot. 

Wherever you're from, kid, keep doing what you're doing. Our gardens have never looked better. Although from four conversations we had the first week, you work harder when I criticize you instead of compliment you. 

You got rid of our bitey ants. 

Nobody's ever gotten rid of our bitey ants before. 

Sure, they'll probably blow in with the East Wind again, a new little nest and at the rate you're going--op, look right now, hard worker you, armed with pest control and drowning the bite out of those little bitey ants. I've told MY boss I never want you put on something as mindless and stupid as vacuum-bathroom-trash duty on the interior. Any LUNKHEAD can do that stuff. Aim vacuum. Turn on vacuum. Walk around in prescribed circles. It's not that hard. 

Your gardening skills though?

You got. our bowlflowers. to BLOOM. They never bloom. I didn't think our particular brand even BLOOMED AT ALL but with your sunburned garden-hands, we have gorgeous silken silver blossoms for the first time since I started working here 15 years ago. 

You're going to have a lovely paycheck and I've upgraded your food rations and you've got full access to the entertainment facility--I just know given your personality I can't TELL you you're good at it. It makes you work less! 

Good little Gahedl. You do you. 

Right now, Mesketl had a bit of a problem. 

The Federation Ambassador Vulcan wanted to walk around in the garden. 

"Why exactly, sir?" Mesketl asked. Off in the corner of his viewscreens the Ambassador could sort of see, gardener Beemera was sleeping under a bench, YOU I'm putting on vacuum duty later, hopefully it'll keep you awake, lunkhead. Trash Duty Jorizard was Trashing at a snail's pace, and good little Gahedl was smashing ants at an angry but professional pace. 

"Walking through nature is a tradition for Vulcans," Spock said. "I'm surprised you have not kept the tradition alive here given the condition of this garden." 

Mesketl side-eyed the garden, avoiding mentioning that the whole damn thing'd been nothing but mowed for the last couple years, and the little plots of land full of yellerweeds and stickler weeds and nobody wanted to weed them because they were also full of bitey ants and nothing bloomed. 

It looked nice NOW but that was because Gehedl'd been working his magic on it for the last 7 months. 

"Erm," Mesketl frowned and checked the security logs. Technically it was JUST a park and technically there was nothing interesting at all in the park it was just there to be a sound-barrier between the Military Third Building Subdivision B and Atmospheric Vehicular Launchpads One. "Sure, but I can see your, whatever you do on the viewscreens." 

"That does not matter to me," said Spock. 

Mesketl watched him walk off, -glide- off and kind of wondered if Vulcans had wheels under their feet. Creepy uncanny valley nearly-normal eerie alien people. 

Does Gehedl like ale? 

Should I even befriend Gehedl? Or would that put a damper on his workspeed? Heehee judging by the way you're going at the walkway by the Iron Oaks with the edging tool, we are again antless. 

Good little Gehedl. 

On poor Garak-pretending-to-be-someone-named-Gehedl's end of the deal, the nice thing about the edging tool was it was about the only thing that needed to be done that didn't also hurt after being BIT BY BITEY ANTS, and watching the edger behead the graingrass getting too tall around the trees and daydreaming about each of the little grayish green things being people that pissed him off was kind of nice. 

His pocketwatch beeped. 

Time to water the bethenias. 

Again. 

Don't you people ever do Deserts?? ONE UGLY SHRUBBERY DRINKS MORE IN A DAY THAN MY ENTIRE HOUSE GROWING UP USED IN A WEEK.

Looking up though, it did look like it was likely to rain again sometime soon. Then he'd be soggy itchy unhappy and in a worse mood than he already was. 

All I want to do

Is get in

Get the data

and get out

SIX MONTHS AGO!! 

miserable miserable unhappy pissed off angry grumpy 

Oh great it looks like Beemera may or may not have switched the sprinkler settings. Now I get to turn the damn things on, walk all the way out to the goddamn bethenias, see if she's put them on the right settings visually because this thing is nothing but 2 mechanical blue knobs, and then walk back and change them if she's messed with them. 

So poor little grumpy Garak switched on the bethenia sprinklers and grumpymarched out to where the bethenias were drinking more water than any one plant really deserved anyway, and the sprinklers WERE on the wrong setting, a full-lawn setting instead of the little tube running under the bethenias themselves--

\--and there was some Romulan guy kneeling with his eyes closed IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SPRINKLERS. 

"Are you-- erm," Great if I say anything I'm probably going to be in massive trouble. Except that outfit color doesn't look like any Romulan subdivision I've seen since coming here. Civilian clothes?? 

He's just sitting in the sprinklers. Letting himself get soaked. Not even paying attention. Not pissed not cranky not itchy or if he's itchy he's magically amazingly able to just ignore it. 

How are you doing that? 

WHY are you doing that?

"Beemera??" Garak yelled and the shriveled little waif of a Romulan teenager darted out from behind something. "Would you go shut the damn sprinklers off! And don't reset them without--without ASKING FIRST or something." 

As selfish and water-hungry as the bethenias were, at least they kind of listened to him. Beemera had only been here a week, was utterly terrible at this, and hopefully she'd be fired soon. 

The sprinklers did in fact turn off. 

The Romulan didn't even seem to care or notice. 

Garak was bewildered and more than a little confused. 

Schlopping through the soggy grass, he went over to the man. "Excuse me, sir, are you all right? You seem a bit..."

Like you might get me fired for getting you utterly drenched if I don't apologize a bunch. 

"...damp." 

The man sighed and seemed to come out of a deep trance, standing up and not seeming all that very Romulan. Cardassians were not innately good at categorizing. They were wired with lovely photographic memories that then required categorizing afterward. 

Romulan hair Romulan ears, not a shirt I've seen around here locally--and an eerie, deep, foreboding, looming, tall... wise?...presence.

"Logically--" the man started to say.

OH you're a VULCAN that explains 

Actually that explains nothing I still have no idea how you're not utterly livid we got you with the sprinklers. 

All that explains is that you probably can't fire me probably. 

"--water is as much a part of nature and a garden as anything else." 

"Uh-huh." Garak looked the Vulcan up and down and sifted through a dozen Interrogation classes, finally landing on some way to ask the right question to get a relevant answer. 

"Are you sure you're all right?" Garak asked him in a kind, the-class-said-Good-Cop I'm not exactly a COP here but it'll do in a pinch, voice. "If I were in your shoes, I'd be so angry I'd likely throw something!" 

Which is kind of the mood I'm in all the time here ANYWAY but that's beside the point and now my shoes actually are as soggy as the rest of you ohnevermind.

"When there is no emotion, there's no reason to 'throw something', as you put it," the Vulcan said in a voice that could have walked out of ancient Cardassian novels about Desert Nomad Wizards.

Wait what?

Garak blinked at him. Training in Vulcan Anything wasn't part of his job nor his schooling nor the books he'd seen or anything. 

Drugging emotions away, both for valid medical reasons and general mood reasons, was certainly a thing back home. Back home there was an entire shelf of lovely mood-managing pills and here he'd HAD a supply of mood-managing pills set for ONE MONTH not SEVEN MONTHS grr angry

That's probably part of why I'm THIS DAMN ANGRY 

but 

"How does one go about having no emotions...?" At all? I kind of love this plan. 

Like 

A LOT.

On SPOCK's end, at the moment what Spock saw was a young sunburnt Romulan utterly desperate for a logical anchor in a chaotic morass of miserable. The way the little Romulan'd smashed ants on the camera was nothing but a display of pent up rage. 

The teachings of Surak would be just what this kid needed, and a wonderful way to bring Romulus and Vulcan back together in a time of political crisis. 

On Garak's end, great I got an invite to a cave, I backchecked it 4 ways and also realized I'm probably THIS DAMN ANGRY because I'm low on meds, let's figure out how to get a few, yay pills Am Less Pissed Now. Let's make sure Mesketl has no idea I'm doing anything other than exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm lightly allergic to Med-Number-443 which on Romulus is the same drug as Yachirnol, great now I can look sick-ish when I need to. *cover tracks obfuscate cover tracks cover tracks*

Hey THIS is actually fun again! 

Stupid gardens... 

On Mesketl's end, well, Garak was so damn paranoid that Mesketl had no idea his little underling was dashing off to a cave every night after work. Mesketl's understanding was that Gehedl wasn't feeling super-great, was going to bed early, and oh-look there's even somebody IN the bed where there's supposed to be on my employee camera. I don't even have any reason to worry about it. Beemera on the other hand is probably fucking what's-his-face from the other janitorial division. SHE I need to keep an eye on... 

On Beemera's end--sex with who now? 

And back on Spock's end, the young little Romulan picked up things -quick-. 

Spock told him the story of Surak. 

"Gehedl" back-quoted something he'd said offhand 2 days later. 

Spock explained logic.

"Gehedl" bantered back with a handful of viewpoints that both made Spock wish the Military Mind that was "Romulan" training had never been a thing, totally unaware it was Cardassian culture he was trying-unsuccessfully-not-to-be-miffed-at and praise whoever taught this kid Mathematics. 

Spock explained meditation. 

Once. 

Gehedl came back the next day with questions most kids didn't know to ask for years.

On Garak's end, Cardassians have photographic memory, Vulcans and Romulans DO NOT and he kind of forgot that was a thing to cover up in the process of learning all of this. 

There were things he rather vehemently disagreed with... and tried to ARGUE BACK ABOUT... which seemed to baffle the poor Vulcan a bit... mostly "The Needs of the Many outweigh the Needs of the Few or the One".

Without naming names when he argued with Spock--

Many WHAT? 

Cardassians? 

Duh 

EVERYONE? 

Let the Klingons have what they "need" and we don't have a planet anymore. Let the Bajorans do what they think they need and we're all paying tribute to their Elder Gods or some such nonsense. Romulans "need" to feel like they're in charge and I'm here explicitly to make sure they are not actually as in charge as they think they are. 

Also "We are here to serve".

Serve -what-? 

Also your "Logic" isn't exactly "Logic" as in the actual definition of Logic it's more like guidelines you've labeled as "Logic" because that's how language and cultures do language and culture and your definition would flunk my definition's Math or Programming tests! 

It's a philosophy that seems to work rather poorly when used on highly "illogical" people. 

On the other hand, none of that matters when all it takes to turn off the Angry and turn off the effects of the hurt and itchy and icky and miserable and awful and everything that is hell that is this place is for me to follow what you've taught, sit down, and SHUT MY FREAKING BRAIN UP. 

My mind in charge of my mind. 

Not the pills. 

Not the ants. 

My mind. 

In charge of my mind. 

For three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes every morning, for tiny pieces of time, --I-- am in charge of what's in my head and what I'm feeling and how I process what Is. 

I'm also really really enjoying the concept "Live Long and Prosper". 

I INTEND TO!!

And for the next week, two weeks, three weeks, on Mesketl's end, nothing changed, the garden was still lovely and Gehedl was still great at gardening, he just threw the rakes less often than he had been. Also the little brat Beemera'd been transferred and they had a new little brat, erm, employee to work with who was just as much of a pain in the arse that Beemera'd been in a totally different way. 

On Spock's end, he was still bumming around trying to get MORE people as eager as "Gehedl"'d been and running into problems. Gehedl was disinclined to share, had been sneaking out, told utterly no one this was A Thing and his boss and coworkers had no idea and Gehedl didn't know anybody and didn't want to tell anybody about this. 

That was unfortunate and now Spock had to logic his way into figuring out some way to get his star pupil to SHARE at all! 

On Garak's end, the first moment he was all by himself in his little Gehedl Apartment with a camera Mesketl could totally see him in--

\--for the first time in his entire life, nothing "out there" mattered AT ALL. 

Eschewing Vulcan meditation poses for the moment in favor of looking like he was a totally normal rural Romulan nobody reading a data pad from "back home" where Gehedl was supposed to be from, he sat on the nice sturdy chair and just -Zen Meditated Out-. 

Nothing at all mattered for the moment right now this instant right here right now. 

What was real right now at this moment was the chair under him an the AC breeze and the carpet under his feet and the warm plastic side of the data pad and that was IT. 

Father was far away and until the data pad's buzzer went off, Garak didn't have to feel anything at all about him if he didn't want to. The feelings popped up, were acknowledged, and went their merry way. Mila was far off and far away and until the buzzer went off, the guilt wandered up, existed, was acknowledged, went away. Missing her existed, was acknowledged, went away. Being pissed at Devska his boss from back home, being worried what Devska'd do, being anxious about her got acknowledged and went away. 

Once he had a safe place to Feel Angry Sometimes, there back at the house pretending to read, he wasn't mad AT the bethenias anymore, pissed at the bowlflowers, raging at the yellerweeds. Yellow Bitey Ants got acknowledged and sprayed instead of mentally screamed at and sprayed. The garden just existed and in the moments where he could pretend to be doing one thing and actually be walking-meditating while gardening, the whole thing was magnificently -fun-. 

Mulling over "The Needs of the Many outweigh the Needs of the Few or the One" while dealing with dead annual plants in a wheelbarrow under the iron oaks, Who is Many? Who is Few? Who is One anyway? 

What are NEEDS? 

I exist. 

Maybe I don't, Spock said "Nothing Unreal Exists" and I'm still not sure what that means exactly. 

I exist. 

-I- have needs. 

Cardassia exists. 

Cardassia has needs. 

My family back home exists. 

My job back home exists. 

My job -here- exists. 

The rule "on the tin" from Devska was a strict list of "get in THIS way do things THAT way do this THAT way blah blah blah" but the end goal was just to get the data and also frame someone. 

Now that Garak wasn't juggling being pissed off and wanting mood-managing drugs all the time... 

...what other ways are there to get that data? 

Spock taught him about "Kahs-Wan", a survival test where one spends 10 days out in the middle of nowhere without food or water or weapons. 

That would have sounded utterly insane to Garak before meeting Spock and it still sounded pretty insane, but "Logically"--if you can handle that you can handle all kinds of very useful Spy Things. 

Not that they were going to have time to DO that thing. With a much less frazzled mind, easier to sort, easier to listen to himself and then listen to other people, Garak figured out Beemera'd been transferred to vacuum duty. 

Avoiding everyone very carefully, Garak used normal Cardassian knowledge from classes back home and rigged up a little scanner, figured out where Beemera'd be, stuck it on her shoe, let her do her job for a few days, then stole the damn shoe. 

He told Spock he was going back to where Gehedl was from to try a kahs-wan where his family was. He told Mesketl that family back home needed him and told the little Ferengi that had been the transport there and back home enough tips on how to run a Romulan garden that the Ferengi wrote a little e-book and sold it for a couple slips of latinum fiftyzillion times. 

Arriving home, turns out Devska'd been suspicious of Garak's link with Tain and was deliberately stalling him on Romulus to keep him out of the way. HER boss was pretty pissed at her, and Garak was busy as fuck now. 

Still "stealing" three, five, ten, fifteen minutes whenever possible to pretend to be doing one thing and really just Zen-Meditating out. 

Whatever happened with the Bajoran prisoners still happened. "Needs of the Many ARE YOU MANY? Does this COUNT? Is this even a good IDEA?" 

And he was still decidedly Exiled. 

Yet the nice thing about Terok-nor-now-dubbed-Deep-Space-Nine was that he knew where the cameras lived. Nobody was watching him in the whole back part of the tailor shop AT ALL. Total privacy. Sort of. As long as no one walked in on him. The front end was just a camera for watching for shoplifters, it wasn't Eyes Watching HIM specifically. Sure, Odo'd PUT one somewhere and Garak'd found it and rigged it with a cycle. 

Yeah, the ship was AWFUL. 

Freezing cold. All the time. 

Brighter than two suns. 

Bajorans glaring at him. 

And plopped down behind the Bajoran Pantyhose Shelf, in total silence, in full at night anyway after the shop closed with no customers, Mind Silence and Nothing and Emptymind and Emptyhand and the cold just exists out there and I decide how I want to handle that and the bright exists out there and I decide how to handle that and Tain exists and I can Be Mad all on its own back here on its own. 

Feel and Be and Exist and for 3, 5, 7, 15 minutes Nothing Matters At All. 

During the slow season, a few times, that 15 minutes turned into 20, 30, 60 and for 20, 30, 60 minutes Nothing Mattered At All. 

And that --changed things--. 

"The Wire" didn't need to be on. It existed, there if he needed it and here, he --didn't need it--. 

Yet. 

It kicked on on its own for a split second when he accidentally cut his thumb on sewing shears.

It kicked on on its own for a split second when punched by a damn Klingon that turned out to be a Changeling anyway. 

It kicked on on its own when he had to torture Odo to get Tain to fkking like him again. 

And that last time, Garak kicked it back OFF. 

He was rather more "in charge" of the relationship with Bashir this time around, staying mysterious, staying, from Bashir's perspective "quirky" for a lot longer. They had more adventures, Rugal-style adventures, Duras-sisters adventures, flirty-it's-Valentine's-day here have a replicated heart adventures. Romantic adventures. A fair number of them. 

They still had A Bond just not the same bond it would have been. Garak was less vulnerable to Bashir for a lot longer than he otherwise would have been. 

And then dealing with Jem Hadar beaming in on the shuttle and getting bopped with a rifle butt--

\--the wire kicked on on its own for a split second then too. 

Stuck in the prison camp with Tain he was angry all over again, and sitting there on the bed pretending to be doing nothing but SITTING THERE ON THE BED, sifting through the angry--

\--do things change when the anger is valid? Tain dragged me out here and is DEAD now and the whole thing is just ten thousand dangers and it's one thing to be mad at ants doing what ants do on a warm comfortable day surrounded by plants that like you. 

I miss those gardens now. I'd take Yellow Bitey Ants over Jem Hadar every day forever, and the bowlflowers were adorable. 

It's another to be sitting in a concentration camp surrounded by Jem Hadar than have promised the only way out is death, and Father's got me stuck here, trapped, probably going to die. HE'S... still hating me and everything I do and everything I am or ever tried to be or... 

Hm I wonder what would have happened if I had that Vulcan teach me how to mind meld and I mind melded with Tain and figured out WTF was wrong with him!?

Wrong with -him-.

Not me.

HIM.

-I- exist. 

My needs. 

Me. 

He exists. 

Over there. 

Not

me. 

-I- decide what I feel and I decide what I feel about -him-. 

His decisions are HIS OWN decisions and his emotions are HIS OWN emotions.

I have needs. 

My needs are relevant. 

I exist. 

I. Exist. 

Me. 

Which was rather the exact opposite of what the Vulcan had been trying to teach him but it worked wonderfully anyway.

"Garak," Bashir sat down next to him. "Are you -meditating-?" 

"Erm." MY secret. MINE. "My dear doctor, of course not, what would staring at the wall do?"

Switching to looking at Bashir though, "Although, if I hadn't come -here-, I wouldn't have been able to find you again. There are many books I've read while stuck on Terok-Deep Space Nine, a few Vulcan ones."

I pick my needs. 

I have needs. 

My needs are relevant. 

If you'll have me, I need -you-.

Taking Bashir's hand gently, "Do you want to live long and prosper -with me-? Here and when we get out of here?" 

"Garak... did you just turn a Vulcan greeting phrase into a wedding proposal?"

"Is -that- what it was?" Garak beamed at him, despite their being in a hellforsaken prison camp, "Did I succeed?" 

Bashir shoulder hugged him, "Martok, do you have a rank that can marry people? We're stuck in a death camp, may die anyway..." 

"We can have a half-wedding here and something better when we ARE OUT," Garak said. 

And then fixing the systems in the crawl space in the prison room was as bad as the interrogation chambers the Wire was DESIGNED FOR. Tight quarters, no air, bad lighting, random electric shocks.

The wire kicked on, doing its job when it was needed, doing what it "said on the tin", doing why he'd had it installed in the first place, drugs where drugs belonged, used not abused, and then as they drove off safe and fleeing from the Jem Hadar, the wire SHUT BACK OFF. 

And they had a lovely full wedding back on the station. Bashir still didn't get to find out Garak meditated. 

Meanwhile, on poor Spock's end, he'd spent a lovely wonderful month with a lovely wonderful pupil who promptly vanished completely and he had to start all over from scratch. 

And enough Romulans were enough not-good-at-memorizing the way Gahedl'd been that after the 9th comparative-fail, relative-to-the-9th-pupil-a-success, Spock got more than a little suspicious that something had been Off about Gehedl. 

Bothering Mesketl about it, poor Mesketl missed his little gardener like crazy and the info Mesketl had was that Gehedl'd died. Poking into that a little bit, Spock found out that not only was "Gehedl" not on the records ANYWHERE where he said he'd be, "Gehedl" wasn't even actually a Romulan name AT ALL. 

Like a Russian trying to name himself a nice normal American name "Tohn" by jamming "Tom" and "John" together, but then working at a base in Argentina where everyone spoke Spanish anyway and none of the Argentinians cared that "Tohn" was not an American name. 

Being Spock, he was very very very very busy for a very long time anyway and didn't have a lot of attention to devote to figuring out WTF Gehedl even was, but random conversations with various people about the Dominion War, about Cardassians, about anything, a few dropped phrases here and there along the way...

...I wonder if Gehedl was Cardassian? 

So when Solok from T'Kumbra was bothering Sikso about Baseball and Worf and OBrien and Leeta and everyone else was having a wonderful time in the Holosuite, Spock'd bummed along for the ride, gracefully, "Vulcans never Bum" and was wandering around the Promenade as the nearest safe Federation space to speak with Cardassians. 

From Spock's perspective, 

"Are you -sure- you don't want to come with?" some human in a baseball outfit was asking A Random Cardassian. 

"My dear doctor--" 

That was -definitely- Gehedl's voice. Nobody else had that voice. 

"--I've had more than my fair share of concussions in my life and am disinclined to put myself deliberately in the way of acquiring any more of them!" 

"Allright allright, I'll be back for dinner, Keiko's suggested a recipe off the replicator called... baklava??" 

"That sounds wonderful." the Cardassian said. He and the human kissed and the human dashed off to the holosuite. 

"Had I known where my teachings were going," Spock said, "I'm not sure I would have shared everything I did, but you seem to have made good use of it." 

On Garak's end, THAT WAS DEFINITELY SPOCK'S VOICE. Nobody else has that voice. 

hiiiii

Garak stepped back into the shop out of the middle of the promenade walkway, "Well, there is your lovely little Vulcan saying, "Kaiidth" What is, is" It's not like you can change it now, and..." 

Garak stared off at the rest of the Promenade through the doorway around his eerie elegant teacher, thumbing through ten thousand memories of using the Vulcan Meditations to get through -everything- and rather wondering if he would have survived at all without it. 

"...given the way the war's gone, I think there are Many who've been happy this One has that skill set and I think great thanks is in order. Bashir doesn't know I know how to do any of this, but do you like Baklava?"


End file.
